Effects-based operations

Effects-based operations (EBO) is a <a href="/facts/United_States_Armed_Forces/NHVsU9Id">United States military</a> concept that emerged during the <a href="/facts/Gulf_War/6LdLnGdo">Persian Gulf War</a> for the planning and conduct of operations combining military and non-military methods to achieve a particular effect. An effects-based approach to operations was first applied in modern times in the design and execution of the Desert Storm air campaign of 1991. The principal author of the daily attack plans—then Lt Colonel, now retired Lt General <a href="/facts/David_Deptula/FweGb1UP">David A. Deptula</a>—used an effects-based approach in building the actual Desert Storm air campaign targeting plan. Deptula describes the background, rationale, and provides an example of how an effects-based approach to targeting was conducted in Desert Storm in the publication, "Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare." The doctrine was developed with an aim of putting desired strategic effects first and then planning from the desired strategic objective back to the possible tactical level actions that could be taken to achieve the desired effect. Contrary to conventional military approaches of force-on-force application that focused on attrition and annihilation, EBO focused on desired outcomes attempting to use a minimum of force. The approach was enabled by advancements in weaponry—particularly stealth and precision weapons—in conjunction with a planning approach based on specific effects rather than absolute destruction. Deptula, speaking at the Gulf War Air Campaign Tenth Anniversary Retrospective, on 17 January 2001 on One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, defined the goal of EBO; "If we focus on effects, the end of strategy, rather than force-on-force the traditional means to achieve it militarily, that enables us to consider different and perhaps more effective ways to accomplish the same goal quicker than in the past, with fewer resources and most importantly with fewer casualties." Others have postulated that EBO could be interpreted as an emerging understanding that attacking a second-order target may have first order consequences for a variety of objectives, wherein the <a href="/facts/Commander%2527s_intent/oCHjzNJw">Commander's intent</a> can be satisfied with a minimum of collateral damage or risk to his own forces.
EBO is not just an emerging concept—it was the basis of the Desert Storm air campaign plan. However, over the years since, multiple views have emerged on what it meant and how it could be implemented. Most notably, military scientists at the <a href="/facts/Air_Force_Research_Lab/QGBMMKKa">Air Force Research Lab</a>, the <a href="/facts/Army_Research_Lab/CULgwaW6">Army Research Lab</a> and <a href="/facts/DARPA/Uf9sarhT">DARPA</a> engaged in research to develop automated tools to annotate options and recommend courses of action. This is hard science and tools are slow to be implemented. For air forces, it supported the ability for a single aircraft to attack multiple targets, unlike tactics of previous wars, which used multiple aircraft to attack single targets, usually to create destruction without thought of later re-use by allied forces or friendly civilians.
While technological capabilities can facilitate an effects-based approach to operations, emphasizing tools and tactics miss the fact EBO is a methodology or a way of thinking—it is not a fixed set of tactics, techniques, and procedures. An effects-based approach starts with the end-game of action as the starting point in planning the appropriate application of each of the elements of security—diplomatic, information, military, and economic—to reach the desired end-state. Accordingly, EBO concepts traditionally take a "systemic approach" to security challenges, evaluating the situation through the lens of strategic centers of gravity—leadership; key essentials; infrastructure; population; and military forces. Each of these strategic centers of gravity can be decomposed into operational centers of gravity, and each of those into tactical centers of gravity. EBO is an approach that looks at the totality of the system being acted upon and determining what are the most effective means to achieve the desired end state.
In 2008, Joint Forces Command stopped using the term "effects-based" after failure of the Army-led TEBO JCTD. However, the concept remains valid in, and used by all, the military services. On 31 August 2011, Joint Forces Command was officially disestablished.

Effects-based operations open-in-new

Effects-based operations